Monster Read Online Free PDF Page A

the duct tape bindings carefully. “I’ll help you sit up and then you can peel the tape off your mouth, okay?”
    Alicia felt the hands lift her effortlessly up into a sitting position. A silvery blanket was draped around her, providing more warmth. The man continued to massage her arms and legs through the rustling material of the blanket for the next few moments. Whenever he saw her looking wide eyed at him, McDaniels smiled reassuringly at her.
    “Yep, you’re going to be good as new. Now, do you think you can peel that crappy tape from your mouth?”
    Alicia nodded, reaching up with her still partially numb fingers, feeling clumsily for a corner of the tape. She picked at it, working the duct tape little by little from her mouth. It felt so wonderful to feel the cool air on her mouth, Alicia yanked the last quarter off.
    “Ouch.” McDaniels chuckled. “I guess that stuff feels pretty bad after all the time you’ve had it on. Are you warming up some?”
    “I… I think so.” Alicia rubbed her mouth and clutched the blanket around her shoulders. “Is… is that man dead?”
    McDaniels glanced over his shoulder in the direction he had carried Hughes’ headless corpse. “Oh yeah, Honey, he won’t be making the trek down with us. I’m sorry you saw that. I have some friends camping pretty close to here. I wish we could take the chance and carry you back home tonight but it’s real dangerous plodding around up here in the dark. How about I carry you down to where my friends are camping and I light up a nice fire?”
    Alicia accepted the water bottle McDaniels handed her. She gulped the cool water from the small retractable spout. McDaniels let her drink for a long moment and then put a restraining hand over hers, pulling the bottle down.
    “Easy, Alicia, not too much at one time, okay?”
    “You… you know my name.”
    “Oh yeah, your Uncle Frank contacted a friend of mine, who asked me to come help you. They’re all worried sick about you. We have a special phone so we can call your Mommy and Daddy from camp. I’d let you call right now but I’m afraid my friends would be angry.”
    “I…I’m real glad you came,” Alicia whispered.
    “Me too, little one. Do you think you could swallow one of these aspirin? It’ll make you feel better. I’d give you two but I’m afraid they might make you sick on an empty stomach.”
    Alicia took the proffered aspirin tablet. She swallowed some more water to wash it down. Alicia handed the water bottle back to McDaniels while looking around her at the darkening woods. “Are you going to leave the man here?”
    “Part of him,” McDaniels replied, lifting the little girl up in his arms. “We better get moving or my friends will start worrying about me. I think they believe I’d leave them up here in the spooky old woods alone.”
    “You wouldn’t do that,” Alicia stated firmly.
    “That’s what I told them, little one.”
    * * *
    “Christ, it’s dark up here,” Rutledge said. The three FBI agents huddled against a fallen log. “The Colonel should have been here by now.”
    “He’s probably making his way slowly,” Barrington told her. “It’s dark. No use in screwin’ around and breaking something.”
    “I hope you’re right. “I…”
    “Hello the camp,” McDaniels’ voice called out loudly.
    Although McDaniels had not simply appeared in their midst, the three FBI agents jumped at the sound of his voice so near their cold camp. The three scrambled to their feet, peering out into the darkness trying to discern where McDaniels was.
    “Come in, Colonel,” Barrington beckoned.
    A huge shadow detached itself from behind a tree only twenty yards to their right. The FBI agents could see McDaniels was carrying something wrapped in a silver space blanket from his survival kit. The big man carefully walked towards them, threading his way noiselessly through the undergrowth.
    “How the hell do you do that, Colonel?” Rutledge asked for the second